For providing an electrical interconnection, many electrical contacts having a mateable end and an end terminated to a stripped portion of a conductor wire are known in the prior art. One such contact is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,844 and entitled "Hermaphroditic Electrical Contract". In this contact, the mateable end comprises a plurality of several fine wires bundled into a brush. Such electrical contacts have a disadvantage that they require separate manufacture of and separate installation of a conductive portion that must be terminated to each electrical conductor wire. Such separate manufacture and installation is undesirable in many instances. It would be desirable to eliminate or at least reduce the number of necessary components.
It has been proposed that termination to a conductor wire be eliminated and, that with suitable preparation of a multi-stranded electrical conductor cable, that the conductor cable itself can be an integral portion of the electrical contact. Such systems are proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,206,958, entitled "Electrical Conductor Having An Integral Electrical Contact," issuing June 10, 1980 and in concurrently filed Ser. No. 137,228 entitled "Electrical Connector Assembly". The former system has an undesirable feature in that an additional part is necessary which must be manufactured and assembled to the conductor before the conductor can be its own contact. Since the manufacture and assembly of parts is costly in time and labor, such a system involves additional expenditure. Further, the former system presupposes that the conductor will be of a fixed size to be secured within the passage. This is not always the case and might present a problem. It would be desirable to utilize a multi-stranded conductor wire, such as disclosed by the latter system, which alone provides a contactless connector. The latter system requires that exposed end strands of a twisted multi-stranded cable be both untwisted and sheared.
In the past, various devices have been suggested for deploying and/or untwisting strands twisted wire such as typified by the U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,132,251, "Apparatus for Deploying Twisted Wires," and 4,132,252, "Method and Apparatus for Deploying Wires," each issuing Jan. 2, 1979. Such apparatus requires an open grooved surface to receive the strands and a roller to compress the wire strand bundle downwardly and into the grooves. However, these devices have a disadvantage that the user cannot always be assured that one wire will seat within one groove, thereby creating uncertainty that each wire will be cut in a separate channel. It would be desirable to provide an apparatus which would both untwist and cut the ends from a multi-stranded cable.
Accordingly, the contacts and wire preparation apparatus known in the prior art, have limitations and disadvantages.